ILR organizational change experts get ideas from NYC-Ground Zero town hall organizer

By Linda Myers

Carolyn Lukensmeyer knows how to give ordinary people a public voice. That's no small accomplishment in our era of special-interest lobbies by stakeholders with deep pockets.

Carolyn Lukensmeyer discusses AmericaSpeaks' revolutionary approach to town hall meetings Sept. 23 in the New York City extension office of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Gwyneth Dobson

Lukensmeyer was the force behind the vastly successful "Listening to the City" event at the Javits Center in New York City in July 2002 that allowed thousands of ordinary citizens to get involved in the planning process for Ground Zero's future. Her organization, AmericaSpeaks, works to create new forms of democratic and public engagement through balanced demographic selections of participants and computers record and synthesize instantaneously the comments of large groups of people.

Lukensmeyer discussed her group's revolutionary approach to town hall meetings Sept. 23 with a study group of about 15 educators and consultants in organizational change in the tri-state region. The group has been meeting regularly for the past two years at the New York City extension office of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations and was launched under the aegis of ILR senior extension associates Peter Lazes and Jane Savage.

Lazes and Savage invited Lukensmeyer to speak to the group because they believe her ideas also will work in organizations undergoing change.

"The strategies Carolyn talked about could easily be used in other programs and provide an important process to help increase civic participation, an impact factor for an active democracy," said Lazes, who is director of Programs for Economic Transitions (PET) at the ILR School. (See http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/extension/pet.)

Savage, who is associate director of PET, said that the principals AmericaSpeaks uses "could be useful to our work with labor and management, where we help to create greater voice for workers in important issues in the workplace."

At the gathering, Lukensmeyer discussed her approach to engaging ordinary citizens in governance through new forms of democratic dialogue. She described how AmericaSpeaks bases its projects on clear issues requiring public input and works with key players to create a credible process. The views of a broad mix of people not only are heard but also recorded, creating detailed records of public opinion that help politicians and planners evaluate and reflect on issues important to the public and the media, among others.

"Lukensmeyer and AmericaSpeaks attempt to redefine democracy in the way many of us know it," said Savage. "They shoot for half the participants to be unaffiliated with any particular stakeholder group and strive for an appropriate demographic mix," she reported. "That, combined with sheer mass and an emphasis on educational materials, appears to move the dialogue away from rigid positioning and grandstanding."

Lazes commented that "pre-event planning and post-event follow-up processes are critical to ensure that authentic decision-making is achieved from an event like 'Listening to the City.' Without support and accountability activities in conjunction with such a town meeting, collective citizen opinions could be ignored."

Adel Hussein, a staff member with ILR's New York City office who also participated in the study group, called the session with Lukensmeyer "inspiring. Her work carries special significance in light of current debates regarding democracy."

Currently, Lukensmeyer is working with Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams to organize a town hall meeting that will give the city's residents a voice in the new city budget. She worked on a similar project with the city in 2001. She developed her technique after years of experience creating change in public policy and governance, including stints as consultant to the White House chief of staff in 1993-94 and deputy project director for management of the National Performance Review task force under vice president Gore.